Nigeria's education sector and UNESCO's report

The Director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganisation, UNESCO, in Nigeria, Professor Hassana Alidou, at a recentlaunch of the Education For All, EFA, Global Monitoring Report, GMR, saidthat Nigeria has some of the worst education indicators in the world.

In ‘Teaching and learning: Achieving quality for all’, an account by theUNESCO launched 29 Jan 2014, Nigeria is among the 37 countries that arelosing money being spent in education, because children are not learning.UNESCO disclosed that the menace is already costing governments $129billion a year. The report stressed that despite the money being spent, therejuvenation of the primary education is not in the near future because ofpoor quality education that is failing to ensure that children learn.

But speaking in Abuja as at June 2013, when he granted audience to theDirector of the Bureau for the Development of Education in Africa, BREDA,an arm of UNESCO, Dr. Ann-Therese Ndog-Jatta, the supervising Minister forEducation, Barr. Nyesom Wike declared that President Goodluck Jonathan wasfully committed to the elimination of all forms of illiteracy from thecountry, stressing that there is no way significant development can takeplace in the face of illiteracy. Extolling President Jonathan’s giantstride in education, Wike blamed past governments for the challenges beingfaced in the country’s education sector.

“If previous administrations had worked towards eradicating illiteracy theway President Goodluck Jonathan has done in the past two years, we wouldsubstantially have tackled this challenge. However, I am happy we aremaking serious progress with our direct partnership with UNESCO and weshall continue to build on the successes already recorded,” said Wike.

Ten per cent of the global spending is on primary education, yet, hardly achild out of four children can read a single sentence or solve a simplemathematics. UNESCO feared that it would take poorest young women indeveloping countries of Asia until 2072, for all to be literate. Onsub-Saharan Africa, UNESCO bemoaned that it would take about the nextcentury for all girls to finish lower secondary school.

With the development, pundits on education in the country decried thesupposition by the Federal Government in 2000, boasting of meeting the 2015Millennium Development Goal in education, whereas the UNESCO said that itwould take more than 70 years for all children to have access to at least,primary education. UNESCO tailored the number of children who did not evenget basic schooling to 57 million, of which a huge portion was fromNigeria. The number of Nigerian children out of primary school was given as10.5 million. The number of children in poorer countries who remainilliterate, notwithstanding having been in school, was given as 130 million.

These worrisome figures by UNESCO, however, did not go down well with thestakeholders in the sector. Mr. Lambert Oparah, the Special Assistant tothe Supervising Minister of Education, Wike, disagreed with these figuressaying, “I don’t know where UNESCO got the statistics from, but I amparticular about Nigeria, especially what the Supervising Minister ofEducation is doing. Apart from the various restructuring programmes he isundertaking to ensure that our education system is uplifted, he has alsoensured that those managing the education system, particularly teachers,are properly trained so that they can effectively impart their knowledge tothe students.

“In the next couple of years, Nigeria will begin to see improved quality ofeducation in Nigeria, given the efforts of the Federal Government towardsthis effect presently.”

Oparah concluded that of late, the federal government demanded thatteachers be upgraded and, this is being done in collaboration with theNigeria Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna.

Nevertheless, UNESCO was not alone in its position about the poor state ofeducation in Nigeria. Contrary to Oparah’s position, Mr. Hassan Soweto whois the National Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign, ERC, was of theview that the education sector in the country is nothing to write homeabout.

He contended that there are 10.5 million out of school children in 2013 ascompared to 2004, when there were 7.3 million.

Soweto revealed that there is less corresponding increase in number ofschools compared to the number of applicants to the universities in thecountry.

At the 11th Education for All Global Monitoring Report by UNESCO, the bleakfuture that Nigeria’s education sector faces means that it would not beable to meet EFA’s Goals 1, 2 and 4 by the year 2015. According to UNESCO’sreport, Nigeria is one of the only 15 countries that the report projectswill have fewer than 80 per cent of its primary school age childrenenrolled by 2015. Nigeria’s out-of-school population not only grew the mostin terms of any country in the world since 2004-2005 by 3.4 million, butalso had the 4th highest growth rate. It was revealed by analysts thatwhile huge sums of money are yearly budgeted for the education sector inthe country, the 2014 budgetary allocation to education in particular,cannot sufficiently address its numerous woes.

There are challenges and prospects of achieving the six goals of EFA,adopted in Dakar in 2000, according to Professor Alidou, but inequality andinequity are very pronounced in certain parts of the country, as she notedin an EFA global monitoring report.

As UNESCO seemingly promised to give-a-hand to the federal government ineducation, developmental agenda and security challenges, hope has beenraised in the Nigeria’s education sector.

Speaking at the lunch of Opo Imo by the Osun state government last year,Senator Sola Adeyeye, the Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on Education,challenged the leaders of Nigeria to integrate technology into Nigeria’seducation system.

“Nigeria could raise nearly half a billion dollars per year for educationif 20 per cent of its oil revenue was invested in the sector. The amountraised would be almost three times what the country currently receives inaid to education,” he said.

Also Bar Wike, promised that the government would continue to work toeradicate illiteracy. “We still appeal to UNESCO to continue to extend moretechnical support to us in the area of elimination of illiteracy in ournation. By next year, we shall increase the level of funding for literacyprogrammes and all mass literacy agencies will be galvanized to take theefforts of the administration to improve our literacy to the next level.”

Findings are that for the education sector in the country to move forward,corruption must be stemmed and the flagrant mismanagement of the country’shuman and natural resources should be properly utilised.

Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’I, former education minister is of the viewthat Nigeria has a need to amplify public awareness among learners,families and all other stakeholders on the potential for succession,employment and self-fulfillment that Technical Vocational Education andTraining could offer.